THRASH-TEST

TESTING THE 2019 TOYOTA GR SUPRA

“Drag racing you can probably do two or three meets and you’ll want to make it faster,” he says. “Unless you’re bettering yourself in the scene, it starts to get stale for me. The fun part is improving. On the track, you don’t get that same feeling to go faster and faster — not as soon, anyway.”

This has resulted in the car’s current form: a 1.5JZ that makes use of a 2JZ-GE bottom end that has been crammed with the pistons and oil squirters out of the previous 1JZ, a set of secondhand 2JZ rods found on Trade Me, and the stock 2JZ crank. Ben gave the 1JZ head a good porting at home with the help of a few bourbons and tickled the valves before whacking it all back together. It’s a package built to battle, but one that Ben isn’t scared of losing should it go sour again; he admits that he’d rather drive it like it’s stolen than be too scared to rev it up — it’s a ‘the good bits are nice, though it’ll make you shed a tear or two when it breaks’ type of deal. Pumping out 380kW at the rears, with a ton of torque thanks to the capacity increase, that’s hard to argue with.

This old battler has paid its dues and now reaps the rewards of a lifetime of improvement dialled in through the trial and error of a young gun who grew up. Ben reckons that when it hits the strip next, there will be a mid-to-low 10-second pass in it, although he’s in no rush to get there — there’s plenty of track hacking and street cruising to be done first.

Despite the 1.5JZ producing northwards of 400kW at the motor, somehow a W-series five-speed gear-swapper is happy to send it rearwards to the wheels!